Genealogy Today Launches Live Roots Meta Search Website

14 October 2008 by Libbi.

Live Roots is a free genealogy search engine that allows visitors to search through thousands of database titles from subscription sites, book publishers and a variety of online sites. Live Roots also lets visitors browse the latest database, publication and new site releases in its “Discover” feature, which is updated daily.

Genealogy Today announced the release of a new website designed to help researchers locate genealogical data — both online and offline, and either digitized or in-print. Live Roots (www.liveroots.com) bridges the gaps between independent websites, large commercial repositories and printed materials yet to be digitized and published on the World Wide Web.

“I’ve always tried to stay informed about new resources; but with so many outlets, there hasn’t been a single place to search across different catalogs,” commented Illya D’Addezio, owner of Genealogy Today. “Through Live Roots I’m partnering with major genealogy companies and many medium and smaller publishers to combine their respective catalogs into one repository.”

Live Roots extends beyond the typical bounds of a traditional search engine or link directory by facilitating access to offline records and publications through partnerships with amateur and professional researchers who either own copies or are geographically close to the libraries and archives that do. In a few quick steps, visitors will be able to hire a researcher to obtain digital copies (scanned or hi-res photo) of pages referencing a specific name (or surname).

“The “live” part of the Live Roots concept lets your research continue even when the publication isn’t available online,” added Illya. “There’s nothing more frustrating than finding a resource that could hold the missing link in your tree, and then discovering that there aren’t any places online to access it.”

For many of the resources in its catalog, Live Roots captures names from their listings and aggregates the data into a searchable index. This makes it possible to locate names within resources, rather than just searching for keywords in titles and descriptions. This includes many of the resources that have yet to be digitized and/or transcribed online.

Using Live Roots, researchers will be able to clearly see where duplication exists among sites, and with its focus on the accessibility of the resources (i.e. online versus offline, free versus paid), they will be able to work more efficiently. By bridging the gap between online researchers and offline resources, Live Roots hopes to make more genealogical information accessible than ever before.

For more details, visit Live Roots

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